


i’ll meet you at the divide (to break the spell)

by thelandofnothing



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Engaged, Established Relationship, F/M, FWB, Friends to Lovers, Gendrya - Freeform, JonSatin - Freeform, Lyckon, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Modern AU, Multi, Reunion, throbb - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25934218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelandofnothing/pseuds/thelandofnothing
Summary: 4 Stark kids have a lot of love to give, but sometimes they don't know how to receive it.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Lyanna Mormont/Rickon Stark, Satin Flowers/Jon Snow, Theon Greyjoy/Robb Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 60





	i’ll meet you at the divide (to break the spell)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fineosaur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineosaur/gifts).



> vignettes of some great pairs   
> 
> 
> (chapter title from if i get high - nothing but thieves)

**_Robb_ **

Robb liked things that were simple.

He liked his coffee with a splash of milk, and his dress shirts ironed, and his work shoes polished. He liked walking to work to avoid the traffic, he liked the way his tie matched his socks and he liked the same takeaway order from the Pentoshi place up the road from his apartment.

But when Theon Greyjoy came crashing back into his life, he was quick to learn that the cushioned illusion he had wrapped around himself was just as delicate as glass.

It had been the Sunday he had driven to his parents’ house for a family roast, something that was as rare and occasional as a warm day in Winterfell when he pulled up and saw an extra car in the driveway.

There was always Bran’s minivan for his wheelchair, Rickon’s cheap and battered second-hand, Sansa’s mini, Jon’s four-wheel drive for off-road endeavours for North of the wall and even Gendry’s old truck. Yet the very sight of the red rental car parked in the middle of the driveway made him jerk on the brakes.

Robb could have lied and kept the explanation of this seemingly abnormal car simple. He could have pretended it was his psychotic aunt Lysa coming down for another unprompted visit. It could have been Benjen visiting or even Robert Baratheon himself.

_Now that’s just pushing it._

But as simple as things were maintained in his life, he knew that there was no one else who had parked this car except for…

He squared his shoulders and entered his childhood home, the very walls he spent running down with his siblings. He studied and passed, tutored under his father in business and finance which he did so with what he could admit was pathetic vigour. His family wasn’t settled down for dinner yet, and instead, they were sprawled around the living room, greeting him enthusiastically without realising the minefield he was stepping across. After the formalities, he could feel the very looming presence missing. 

“I heard you’re a lawyer now,” a voice called from the darkness and Robb stopped, realising he had slipped out onto the porch.

Theon was leaning against the bannister, his long black hair tied up from his face, his ears decorated tastefully with simple jewellery. His face, still gaunt from years that Robb doesn’t quite want to revisit in his mind, looks freer than he ever remembers seeing it.

The only thing now separating him from a turbulent recollection of his past and the outside world was a sliding glass door.

“Yeah,” he breathed, not quite sure what else he could say.

Theon just chuckled, his face illuminated by the embers of his cigarette.

“I mean, it’s what you were destined to do right?"

“Do I look happy to you Theon,” Robb snapped. “Do I look like I’m thriving? A closeted gay in his thirties with nothing but an apartment and qualification to my name? That’s not living.”

The Ironborn man looked at him, a soft expression taking over his features. It became apparent that his simple façade had cracked, that he was no more vulnerable than a child with him. 

What else did he expect from being in front of the man he so unconditionally loved for all the years of his life.

“Where have you been Theon?” Robb asked, his voice laced with anguish as he popped the first button on his shirt and ran his hand through his hair and across his face. “Why leave me here all alone? Why did you try and convince me that a life without you was a better one?”

“I didn’t deserve you,” Theon said, looking up at him. “Not then, when I was that much of a mess. You needed stability and consistency. Your brother was in the hospital, your dad nearly died, he— I couldn’t be that for you, not while you could smile and carry on as if nothing were bothering you. You know that’s why I turned to…”

  
Robb didn’t want to hear about the past any longer, it hurt more than loneliness did.

“But,” he continued, sitting up from his place at the porch, taking gentle steps towards him until he was so close, Robb could feel his breath scratch his cheek. “I am here, maybe not in one piece and maybe with more than one skeleton in my closest. But here I am, standing in front of you."

“Life doesn’t need to be a routine Robb,” he told him. “Nothing good comes out of predictability.”

Predictability was safe.

Robb caught the familiar scent of pine and salt, so piercing that it brought him back five years.

When their lips met, he guessed for life, that loving Theon Greyjoy was simple enough.

* * *

**_Rickon_ **

Rickon lit a cigarette using her lighter.

Cheap and white, with her initials carved in the bottom as a reminder. 

He remembered the cigarette he crushed under his shoe, watching the embers dissipate against the bitumen before he walked in Lyanna’s going away party two days ago.

Someone idiotic was playing EDM, which in truth wasn’t half as bad when someone was drunk as he was; lips glued to the mouth of a bottle of Hennessey. When he looked over the ridge of the bottle, he saw Lyanna there, staring at him with a blank look plastered on her face.

_“Yeah, real classy,” he heard her say from behind him as he walked to the kitchen._

_“What?” he turned to her, walking backwards with a smirk on his face. “Didn’t matter last night, did it?”_

_She pushed him, her brows furrowing and her lips puckering into a straight, angry line._

_“You’re the fucking worst,” she seethed, and he just laughed, feeling his jacket pocket for his packet of cigarettes. “I told you to fuck off out of my life and you’ve come here uninvited, completely wasted.”_

_When she moved to push at him again, but he dodged her, smiling at her as he caught her forearm._

_“You weren’t telling me that when I had you over this,” he slapped the kitchen island. “You remember that?”_

_“You’re disgusting, get off me,” she struggled out of his grasp._

_He watched her stalk away as he chuckled, the alcohol inhibiting every little bit of common sense he had left._

He should have never gone, that was the thing because watching Lyanna try so hard to get away from him stung worse than any other time he had been rejected.

He walked himself to the beach, where the hiss of the waves was both welcoming and painfully stinging.

“You’ll catch your death,” he heard a voice and he turned around to see Lyanna clutching a jacket around her shoulders, a scarf snug under her chin.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, pressing the smoke to his lips.

“What do you think?” she asked, walking over the sand carefully with her hands out to balance her. “I came out here in the middle of bloody winter just to admire the view?”

“And to pinch a smoke,” he finished for her, flicking open the packet.

She made a face of hesitation before shaking her head.

“I quit the first time you left,” she explained, and he chuckled.

“Fucken classic,” he shook his head, finishing his fag and dropping it to crush on the floor.

“What’s that meant to mean?” she asked, her brow furrowed.

“Quit two bad habits in one, did you?”

Lyanna just looked away and pursed her lips.

“You were a bad choice,” she corrected. “And it’s simply just my fault for choosing you.”

Rickon nodded, his heart stinging at her blatant honesty. 

“Don’t be like that.”

“Why’d you follow me then?” he countered, staring down at her. “If I’m so disgusting.”

“Because it’s not wild or ‘badass’ or whatever adjective you wanna use to explain the fucking mess you are,” she said. “It’s just downright sad Rickon, you’re nursing that bottle like it’s a pacifier,” she sighed and hugged her jacket closer to her frame. “You came up here for a reason Rickon and I want to know that reason.”

He turned his head.

“I missed you in my life,” he said, and she scoffed. “You can think whatever Lya, I know how I treated you. I went to the party thinking I could reverse everything, but I just shut down…”

She went silent as he walked back up to her, watching her read his face.

“I don’t deserve you but yet I still want you. I know it’s selfish, I know—”

He didn’t get a second before Lyanna’s lips were on his, her palms cradling his cheek. One hand went to her hip and one to tangle within her hair. It felt like coming home.

“You don’t get to decide what I deserve,” she told him, her voice nearly stolen away by the crash of the waves as they ghosted over his lips. “You, out of all people, don’t get to decide what’s good for me.”

He swallowed as she moved away, her hands reaching for his packet and the lighter.

“I choose a bad choice.”

He watched her walk in front of him, lifting the cigarette to her lips and lighting it. The sight of her made him smile.

  
  
  


* * *

_**Arya** _

Arya didn’t like when Gendry got angry.

It didn’t scare her per se, not much did, but it made _her_ angry when she couldn’t console him, when she couldn’t get past the wall, he put against her. Usually, when Gendry got frustrated or pissed off, a single look from her would calm him down. It was so rare to be the cause of such intense and silent anger.

Seven years they had been together and with only a handful of fights to their name, Arya thought they were safe. But after those long years she had realised there had been more to their relationship than she thought, that they were each other’s confidant, each other’s rock and most of all, they were each other’s person. Especially because they were due to be married in a few months.

Yet when what Arya had thought was an unbroken cycle had cracked, rather significantly, she felt as if she were stage front, standing in the blaring lights.

If there was one thing, she knew him by, it was that Gendry loathed lack of communication. For someone who preferred action to words, he was incredibly vocal about his schedule and the things that went on his life. He told her about his day without fail every single time he had work or told her about projects or times he went out. It was endearing at first but then started to welt like an unattended wound. 

Because she had soon realised that his expectation had been that she would reciprocate.

But Arya was a forgetful and busy person, and she made plans at the drop of a hat; happy hours with co-workers, agreeing to working overtime or going on last-minute vacations with her friends. She valued her freedom and her flexible schedules as the same entity which undoubtedly bothered Gendry. At first, she had misinterpreted what had annoyed him so much about it, that it wasn’t the fact he didn’t want her to go to things, it was that he would like to know about where she was going or why she had come back in a drunken stupor at three am on a weekday with work the next day. In moments of weakness, he had called her irrational and childish and she had called him boring, overprotective and controlling.

But it was never the case, and it would take the dissipation of her anger to realise that she was trying so hard to prove he was controlling her, but he truly was just concerned and wanted to coexist.

And it was one particular night that she had realised the magnitude of her ignorance.

She had gotten home particularly late, another round of happy hour drinks gone wild because who could say no to five-dollar shots. When she stumbled into the apartment, she expected to see Gendry at the dining table working late into the night but all the lights were off, even the one under their bedroom door.

She looked around the darkened room confused. There were flowers in a vase for one, something so rare in their household, that it definitely was suspicious. And they were Northern blue roses, the kind you could only import directly from Winterfell because they didn’t grow anywhere else due to the climate. She looked in the fridge and saw a big pot of Gendry’s cooking, looking inside she could see it was one of her favourites of his.

He was under the covers, snoring sound asleep when she crept into the room, managing to stub her toe on the edge of the bed in her intoxicated state. She stripped and slipped on the t-shirt that Gendry had forgone, feeling the fabric lay cool on her skin. Lifting the covers and sliding into bed, she kissed his cheek and settled next to him, feeling the warmth radiate from his large body. She had forgotten her phone at work that day so when she picked it up from where she had left it on her bedside table, a reminder popped up.

_Reminder: 7 year anniversary!! get wine_

She sat up suddenly, her heart filling with dread. The leftovers in the fridge, the flowers wilting in the vase. She made an unintelligible sound and looked down at Gendry worriedly, her sudden movement making him stir. 

“Just go to sleep Arya,” he mumbled, shuffling further away from her.

She swallowed and lay on her pillow, closing her eyes and doing as he suggested.

When she woke up, he wasn’t there, and he didn’t return home until an hour after his work finished. He looked nonchalant, but tired, in a way that was normally remedied with a cup of tea and a night on the couch. 

“You’re later than usual,” she smiled, tapping her fingers on her wine glass.

Her engagement ring glared like a warning. 

He gave her a pointed looked and slipped his work bag from over his shoulder, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Overtime,” he told her, but she could feel the hypocrisy seep through the cracks.

Gendry never beat around the bush, and as she sat there, feeling scrutinised under his gaze, Arya knew she was going to have to apologise to him.

“I’m sorry,” she looked down at her hands. “I’m really sorry about missing it.”

“Maybe you could look at me when you say it,” he said, and she instantly met his eyes.

“I’m sorry I missed our anniversary Gendry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to, I just got carried away with after work drinks and—”

“Look Arya,” he ran a hand down his face and stepped into the kitchen. She couldn’t remember him looking so tired, she hadn’t talked to him properly about work or anything else in a while and maybe that had been part of the problem. She was so caught up in the flow of life that she forgot to regard him on the journey. He leant his forearms against the kitchen island as he continued. “I know you and I know you don’t think these things are important. But they are… You have to realise that all these things that you think are mediocre, they aren’t to me. It’s important to me,” he explained, not raising his voice. “I didn’t grow up with it in my face Arya, I craved for these things as a kid."

She stilled and bit her lip. She was a terrible person, even if Gendry wasn’t saying anything to make it seem like she was.

_I deserve it,_ she thought. _Why can't he just get angry at me._

He would never raise his voice at her that she knew.

“I didn’t mean to say it wasn’t important,” she said quietly, trying to coax out a peep from him but his silence remained.

She distilled the awkwardness of their tension by drumming her nails against the glass again, the tinkering oddly calming.

“So are you going to forget our wedding anniversary too?” 

“Gendry,” she pleaded but at his raised eyebrows she looked away and sighed. “Okay, yeah I deserved that. But no, I’m not going to forget any anniversary in the future. I know it’s important to you and I’m sorry, I’m going to change.”

He sighed.

“I don’t want to fight Arya,” he told her, looking at her wearily. “And I don’t need you to change, you’re capable of it. That’s what hurts.”  
  


She bit her lip.

“I don’t want you to stop going out,” he reassured her. “I wouldn’t dare, and I know how much you like socialising. Just…”

“I know,” she said, sitting up and taking a step towards him.

He moved to speak before he titled his head in the direction of the dining table, where she had set up the humble dinner meant for the night before. And suddenly, the tension in his shoulders and the thrashing of his eyes lessened and she could feel the warmth start to radiate off his figure once again. With the very sight of him relaxing, she felt a wave of calmness settle over her bones.

“I heated up the leftovers,” she smiled, and he looked at her, taken aback. “I fucked up, but I want to make it right.”

He pursed his lips and glanced at the table again, his eyes catching the different floral arrangement. He stepped over, his eyes flickering over the table.

“Blue roses die easily if they’re not in colder climates,” she told him as he traced the petals of a bunch of lilies. “Thought these might be nicer.” 

Lilies had been his mother’s favourite flower and subsequently, they were his too. She knew by the detail of his tattoos and his fondness for them in the florist when getting flowers for various family events.

“We’re going to communicate more,” she said, and he looked at her. “Well I am, and we’re going to be more in touch with each other without stepping on each other’s toes.”

Finally, he let out a smile.

“C’mere,” he beckoned opening his arms.

She rushed towards him. 

“I love you,” she told him, pressing her forehead against his. "Happy anniversary."

“I know,” he whispered. "Happy anniversary love."

As she hugged him close, she was bathed in the smell of him; a hint of cologne mingled with the bare scent of metal, pine and home.

* * *

**_Jon_ **

_Jon shivered when Satin’s lips ghosted against his neck._

_“I’ve never been happier.”_

_Jon’s heart surged with warmth, a blinding juxtaposition to the sting of the cold. There were only a few things that bit through the ice of the Wall; a phone call from Arya, or when Ghost snuggled on his feet for the night, and then there was this._

_With Satin in his arms, he felt as if no ill could touch him from this far up. It felt as if it were a new stream of sudden freedom, so craving he knew he wouldn’t come down from the high the same._

_“I want you to come meet my family for the summer,” he told him and Satin’s eyes lit up._

_“You’re kidding?”_

_Jon raised an eyebrow at him, a smile tugging at his lips._

_“Do I sound like I am?”_

_Satin just chuckled incredulously, shaking his head._

_“You, Jon Snow,” he pushed his arm and moved to sit up. “Are going to be the death of me.”_

But when he was standing outside the door of his family house, the family he never felt quite part of, he knew it was easier said than done. Because Satin made him feel as though he were floating in a world of his own fabrication.

“What’s wrong?” Satin asked him, fixing his cufflinks with a bottle of wine in the crook of his elbow.

“Nothing,” he said dismissively.

“Jon.”

He pushed the door open,

“Jon?” a voice called out and Jon felt his heart rate drop.

He turned around to see Arya jump up into his arms and he held her close.

“Gods, it’s been months since I saw you last."

Jon turned to see Satin standing there, smiling at the sight of them.

“Arya, this is—”

“Satin! Nice to finally meet you,” she called out, walking towards him with her arms open.

“What?” Jon asked confused.

“Oh shove off, it took me one Facebook search to find out you had a boyfriend. Mum wants to meet him, so stop brooding.”

Satin just shrugged his shoulders and smiled at him as Arya walked off, yelling about their arrival to the rest of the congregated family.

“You know this means so much to me,” he said to him. “I know, you’ve never really felt like you belong to this family but you have them. I’ve got you, that’s it.”

Jon looked at the hall lined with the photos of his youth, snapshots of memories that defined him. He felt Satin’s hand enclose his forearm and he felt his soul calm.

“It didn’t mean it was easy being part of this, but they love you,” he reassured him. “And so do I.”

Jon’s eyes went wide.

“You love—”

“Jon! The food is going cold.”

He looked back at Satin who was smirking at him. 

“You heard them Snow,” he said, taking his hand. “Let’s go be with your family.”


End file.
